Notice
About Seam and Seal
A small independent publication of numbered task sheets on how masks and respirators work, fit, wear, wash and are made.
Seam and Seal exists because the same few questions about masks keep being answered badly: which kind is which, how to tell whether one fits, how to wash a cloth one, and what the research does and does not show. Each answer here is a numbered sheet, short enough to use while you are doing the task, with a drawing, a dated source line and the reasons behind the steps.
What it is
The site has fourteen sheets. Some explain (how a filter catches particles, what a standard tests), some are tasks with numbered steps (checking a seal, putting a mask on, washing it, making a cloth one), and some are checks (spotting a counterfeit, deciding when a mask still makes sense). Start on the bench and use the register to find the one you need, or read the sheets in order from sheet 01.
What it is not
Seam and Seal is an independent educational publication. It is not a business, a charity, a club, a professional body or a regulator, and it is not affiliated with any manufacturer, practice, agency or society. It sells and ships nothing, offers no patterns to download, runs no courses and gives no personal advice. If you need a respirator for work, your employer's respiratory protection programme, an occupational-health adviser and the approval body for your region have the final word.
Who writes it
The pages are written and checked by the editors, who speak as the publication and not as individuals. No page claims clinical experience, laboratory testing or personal use. Everything factual comes from a source the editors opened, and the sheet names it. Where guidance was written for an emergency period and later withdrawn or changed, the sheet says so and gives the date. The sources and dates page explains how sources are chosen, how dates are shown and how corrections are handled.
How a sheet is laid out
Every sheet has the same parts. A plate on the right shows a line drawing made for the page, and an at-a-glance card lists the kind of sheet, the reading time and the dates of the guidance it rests on. Clauses are numbered (07.1, 07.2) so that a correction or a question can point to one paragraph. Sources sit at the foot of the sheet as a numbered reference shelf.
The short version
An independent, sourced set of task sheets on masks. No shop, no services, no personal advice, and every rule dated as at its source.